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CFD plugin for Trello

I’ve been using Trello quite a lot recently: it seems to be the tracking tool of choice for many because it is lightweight, simple to use and free.

But with simplicity comes a lack of features. Unlike other systems (e.g. LeanKit and Jira), it doesn’t have metrics such as cumulative flow diagrams (CFD), control charts or histograms.

Whilst at GDS, we used to export data from Trello and paste it into a Google-based reporting suite. Although Emily Webber’s fantastic reports are open-source, getting the data out of Trello was beyond most people’s ability (luckily we had Oli Sinden on our team).

But there is good news: Rhys Godfrey and Nick Hills have created a CFD that is very easy to apply to your Trello board – and it works retrospectively too. To get it working, all you need to do is:

  1. Log in to Trello
  2. Go to http://trello-cfd.azurewebsites.net/
  3. Choose the Trello board you want to report on
  4. View your CFD

The CFD shows data from the creation of the board to the current time (or when the board was closed), plotting 15 points in-between. Cards that have been deleted are not shown at all.

trello-cfd-cropped-600px2

Sure, it’s basic. But, as the pair say, it “is a side project” and they invite us to help them improve the site or add extra features by pulling the code from Github. I spoke to Rhys about getting control charts and histograms added and he is definitely willing to get someone on board to help take this forwards. Who wants to get involved?

Have you seen a plugin or site that takes data from Trello and creates charts? If so, leave us a comment because we’ve not seen anything like it before.

8 thoughts on “CFD plugin for Trello”

  1. There are so many better tools out there that are designed with Kanban in mind. Trello is just a visualization tool. The folks at Fog Creek took a look at the growing trend in Kanban solutions and made a dumbed-down version. Why do people keep trying to make it into what it was never intended to be rather than using the right tool for the job? Kanbanery, LeanKit, and others are easier to use, more powerful and have free versions.

      1. Robin (creator of Corrello) here. If anyone has any questions for me about Corrello I’m happy to answer them. I’m planning on expanding the feature set to better support Scrum and Kanban teams using Trello so don’t be put off if it doesn;t seem complete right now :).

  2. Hi,

    Is there anyway I can use Kanban to assign hours to resources i.e Resource A assigned to task A at 50% and task B at 50%

    1. Hi, thanks for your comment. I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to do. Can you give us a bit more of an explanation? Why are you trying to assign people to tasks? Is it to make sure they have enough work? Or is it to bill clients? Or is it because you need to be efficient? Etc, etc.

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